Every European note taking tool reviewed
Zug, Switzerland
Free with 100 MB of remote storage / Plus $4, Pro $8, Ultra $16 per month, 20% off yearly
Free plan, plus a 30-day money-back guarantee on paid plans
Best for: People who want a Notion-shaped workspace the provider cannot read
Anytype is the only tool in this category that answers the jurisdiction question and the readability question at the same time.
Your key is generated locally on the device when you create a Vault and is never sent to the company, objects are stored encrypted both locally and on the syncing nodes, and the backup nodes hold only a first-layer key that lets them group changes without reading them. The documentation is unusually direct about the cost of that: search indexes are built locally and stay unencrypted, because efficient search needs them that way.
The company is Any Association, reachable at c/o Sielva Management AG, Gubelstraße 11, 6300 Zug, and the terms put disputes exclusively in the Kanton of Zug under Swiss law.
Its documentation states that the infrastructure runs on dedicated servers in data centres within the European Union. Beyond the default network there are two escape hatches most competitors do not offer: a self-hosted network where you run the relay nodes, and a local-only mode that switches the backup node off entirely so your devices sync only across your own LAN.
The product itself is closer to Notion than anything else here — channels, objects, types, properties, relations — and it is local-first, so it works offline by design rather than by caching. The pricing is storage-based rather than seat-based: free with 100 MB of remote storage and unlimited private channels, then Plus at $4, Pro at $8 and Ultra at $16 a month, with 20% off yearly. Objects do not count against the limit; only files do.
What Anytype does well
- End-to-end encrypted with the key generated on your own device
- Backup nodes on dedicated servers in EU data centres, per the documentation
- Self-hosted network and a fully local-only mode both supported
- Local-first, so it works offline rather than degrading offline
- Free tier limits storage, not objects — you can write as much as you like
Where Anytype falls short
- Not open source: the Any Source Available License 1.0 restricts commercial use to allowed networks
- Prices are set in US dollars, not euros
- Search indexes on your device are unencrypted, which the docs state but many readers miss
- No published security certification such as ISO 27001 or SOC 2
- Losing your recovery key means the company genuinely cannot help you — that is the design
Standout feature. It is the only tool in this category where the vendor has arranged not to be able to read your notes and still offers a self-hosted network and a local-only mode as fallbacks.
Nancy, France
Founded 2016
Apps free / Joplin Cloud Basic €2.99, Pro €5.99, Pro 100 GB €9.99, Teams €7.99 per user per month
The applications are free and open source; Joplin Cloud is paid from €2.99 a month
Best for: Evernote refugees who want plain files, open source and a named city for the servers
Joplin is the most straightforward answer in this category to "get me off Evernote without trading one lock-in for another". It imports Evernote ENEX files, has a web clipper, keeps attachments with the notes, and runs on Windows, macOS, Linux, Android and iOS with the applications licensed AGPL-3.0-or-later. Notes are Markdown, so the exit is a directory of files rather than a conversion.
The hosting answer is unusually specific for a small vendor: the plans page states that Joplin Cloud data and servers are all located in France (Paris).
The operating entity is JOPLIN, registered at 3 Place Simone Veil, CS 20739, 54064 Nancy, under RCS Nancy 919 395 087, with French law governing use of the service.
Joplin Cloud starts at Basic €2.99 a month for 2 GB, Pro €5.99 for 30 GB, Pro 100 GB at €9.99, and Teams at €7.99 per user per month with a two-user minimum; a Joplin Server Business licence for self-hosting runs from €3.33 down to €2.50 per user per month by headcount.
The important structural point is that Joplin Cloud is optional. The apps are free and will sync to storage you already control, which makes Joplin the only tool here where you can use the product for years without the vendor holding anything at all. End-to-end encryption exists but is a setting rather than a default, so it has to be switched on deliberately.
What Joplin does well
- AGPL-3.0-or-later applications, free on every desktop and mobile platform
- Joplin Cloud data and servers stated to be in Paris, France
- Direct Evernote ENEX import and a web clipper
- Sync to your own storage instead of the vendor's, or self-host Joplin Server
- Notes are Markdown files, so leaving is a copy rather than an export
Where Joplin falls short
- End-to-end encryption is off by default and has to be enabled
- The interface is functional rather than designed, and looks it next to Bear or Capacities
- No free tier on Joplin Cloud — the free part is the software, not the hosting
- Real-time collaborative editing is not what it does; sharing is notebook-level
- The operating entity is small, and procurement asking about vendor continuity deserves that answer up front
Standout feature. It is the only tool here that names the city its servers are in and also lets you use the product with no vendor server at all.
Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany
Free / Pro $9.99 per month / Believer from $12.49 per month
Free plan with unlimited spaces, objects and blocks
Best for: Personal knowledge bases where every note is a thing, not a page in a folder
Capacities takes the one idea that makes Notion databases useful and builds the whole app around it: everything you write is an object with a type. A book is a book, a meeting is a meeting, a person is a person, and each type carries its own properties and its own view. That removes the step most note apps force on you, where you first decide which folder something belongs in and then never find it again.
The company is Capacities Labs GmbH, Augustinerplatz 2, 79098 Freiburg im Breisgau, registered at Amtsgericht Freiburg under HRB 735669 with VAT ID DE356317955 and Steffen Bleher as managing director.
The free plan is unusually generous and is not a trial: unlimited spaces, objects and blocks, sync across all devices, unlimited custom object types, full import and export, and full-text search, with the limit placed on media at 5 GB total and 100 MB per month afterwards. Pro is $9.99 a month and Believer starts at $12.49.
The gap is the one this directory cares about most. The privacy policy establishes that the controller is incorporated in Germany and warns in general terms that AI features may transmit data outside the EEA, but it names no hosting provider, no data centre and no country for the notes themselves. A German GmbH is a jurisdiction guarantee; it is not a hosting guarantee, and Capacities has not published the second one.
What Capacities does well
- Typed objects with their own properties, which is the useful half of a Notion database
- Free plan with unlimited objects and blocks, limited only on media
- Full import and export on the free plan, not gated behind a paid tier
- German GmbH with a complete imprint: register court, HRB number and VAT ID
- Daily notes and a calendar view that suit a personal journal as well as a knowledge base
Where Capacities falls short
- No data location published anywhere on the site — the biggest gap in this list
- Prices are quoted in US dollars with no euro price shown
- No end-to-end encryption; the provider can read your notes
- No self-hosting and no open-source edition
- AI features may transmit data outside the EEA, per the privacy policy, without naming the recipients
Standout feature. Its free plan gives away unlimited objects and full export, which is the opposite of the usual pattern of making the exit the thing you pay for.
Grünwald near Munich, Germany
Free up to 50 items, 3 canvases and 2 GB / Starter and Business priced per user per month
Free plan, plus a 14-day trial of Starter with no card required
Best for: Small teams who want a wiki that loads instantly and refuses to grow features
Nuclino is a team wiki with a deliberate ceiling. Items, canvases, real-time collaborative editing, and list, board, table and graph views over the same content — and then it stops, which is the point. Teams that found Confluence heavy and Notion fiddly choose Nuclino because it opens and searches fast enough that people actually write in it, and there is no configuration phase before it becomes useful.
The operating entity is Nuclino GmbH at Nördliche Münchner Str. 47, 82031 Grünwald, just outside Munich, with German law applying under its terms.
The security page claims ISO 27001, ISO 27018 and SOC 2, alongside GDPR commitments and the usual enterprise controls: two-factor authentication, role-based access, private workspaces and SAML single sign-on on the Business plan. The free plan is real but small: 50 items, 3 canvases and 2 GB total, with Starter adding unlimited items and canvases, publishing, 30-day version history and 10 GB per user, and Business adding the AI assistant, audit log, SSO and unlimited history.
Two things are worth knowing before choosing it. The security page claims the certifications but names no hosting provider, data centre or country, saying only that Nuclino works with large infrastructure providers — so, like Capacities, the German establishment is the jurisdiction claim and there is no residency claim to go with it.
And the paid prices are rendered client-side and localised, so the public pricing page does not show a figure without JavaScript, which is a small thing but an odd one for a page whose job is to state a price.
What Nuclino does well
- Fast enough that people write in it rather than around it
- List, board, table and graph views over the same notes
- ISO 27001, ISO 27018 and SOC 2 claimed — more than most tools here publish
- German GmbH under German law, with SAML SSO and audit logs on Business
- Free plan is a real plan rather than a countdown
Where Nuclino falls short
- No hosting provider, region or country published anywhere
- Free plan caps at 50 items, which a single project will exceed
- Deliberately limited — no databases with relations, no automations
- No end-to-end encryption, no self-hosting, not open source
- SSO, audit log and unlimited version history only on the Business plan
Standout feature. It is the only tool here that claims all three of ISO 27001, ISO 27018 and SOC 2 — and the only one where that sits next to no statement at all about where the data lives.
Tallinn, Estonia
Founded 2017
Free 100 MB / 10 GB €3, 400 GB €9, 2000 GB €27 per month
Free 100 MB plan, no email address required
Best for: Notes and photographs sensitive enough that the host should not be able to open them
Cryptee starts from a threat model rather than a feature list, and it says so in writing — including the part where it tells you not to use it if you are planning to be the next Snowden.
Documents and photos are encrypted on your device with AES-256 using a key the company says it does not have, no email address is required to create an account, and there is no tracking or activity logging. Ghost folders let you remove a folder from the account until you type its name again, which is a deliberate answer to being forced to unlock your account rather than to being hacked.
The operator is Svartlab OÜ at Narva mnt 5, Tallinn 10117, Estonia, with the terms placing cooperation within the framework of Estonian and EU law. The company has been running since 2017, is entirely bootstrapped with no outside investors, and publishes its source code so the encryption can be reviewed. Pricing is storage-based and openly not the cheapest: 100 MB free, 10 GB for €3 a month, 400 GB for €9 and 2000 GB for €27.
What you give up is everything that depends on the server understanding your content. There is no team wiki, no collaborative editing, no bi-directional links, no graph, no integrations worth the name. Cryptee is a private vault for documents and photographs, and its own site is careful to say where its protection ends. It also describes its hosting only as "our own servers and infrastructure, here in Europe" — European, but without a named provider or country.
What Cryptee does well
- Client-side AES-256 with a key the company states it does not hold
- No email address required to sign up, and no activity logging
- Ghost folders as a deliberate defence against coerced access
- Estonian company, source code published, bootstrapped with no investors
- Documents and photos in one vault, with real storage tiers rather than note counts
Where Cryptee falls short
- Hosting described only as "Europe" — no provider, data centre or country named
- No collaboration, no team features, no real-time editing
- Deliberately more expensive than mainstream storage, and says so
- No bi-directional links, graph view or database structure
- Lose your key and the data is unrecoverable, by design
Standout feature. Ghost folders: it is the only tool here designed around someone forcing you to log in, rather than around someone breaking in.
Karlsruhe, Germany
Plus €8, Team €12, Business €21 per seat per month, about 16% off yearly
14-day trial
Best for: Teams that want linked notes and tasks inside one German-owned suite
Hypernotes is the knowledge half of the Zenkit suite, and it is built for the way a wiki is actually written rather than how it is filed.
Outlining gives a page a hierarchy, typing # links one page to another automatically, and the semantic graph shows what is connected to what — so the structure emerges from the writing instead of from a folder tree someone designed in week one. Tasks live in the same suite, alongside Zenkit Base and Zenchat, which keeps the conversation next to the notes.
The operator is Axonic GmbH, Kaiserstraße 241, 76133 Karlsruhe, registered at Amtsgericht Mannheim under HRB 110424 with VAT ID DE 813834557 and Martin Welker as managing director; disputes go to the courts of Baden-Württemberg. Pricing is per seat on the Zenkit suite: Plus €8, Team €12 and Business €21 per seat per month, with about 16% off when billed annually and a 14-day trial. There is no free plan.
The honest caveat is the infrastructure. Zenkit's privacy policy names Amazon Web Services as its hosting and backend provider and does not state a region, with Google Firebase Cloud Messaging and Apple Push Notification service handling push.
So this is a German company under German law running on American cloud infrastructure whose location it has not published — which is a different proposition from a German company hosting in Frankfurt, and it belongs in the comparison rather than in the small print.
What Zenkit Hypernotes does well
- Bi-directional links and a semantic graph, built into the note structure
- Outlining that turns a written page into a hierarchy without extra work
- German GmbH with a complete legal notice and German court jurisdiction
- Tasks, Base and Zenchat in the same suite under one login
- Mobile apps with offline support
Where Zenkit Hypernotes falls short
- Hosted on Amazon Web Services with no region named in the privacy policy
- No free plan at all — €8 per seat per month after a 14-day trial
- Priced per seat, so occasional readers cost the same as authors
- No end-to-end encryption, no self-hosting, not open source
- No certification such as ISO 27001 or SOC 2 published
Standout feature. It is the only tool here where the notes, the tasks and the team chat are one purchase — and the only German one that names an American cloud as its host.
London, United Kingdom
Free up to 100 cards / Unlimited £6 per month, £72 a year, £54 a year with the 25% discount
Free Starter plan with 100 cards and no time limit
Best for: People whose notes are thousands of small things rather than a few long documents
Supernotes rejects the page-in-a-tree model entirely. Every note is a card, cards link to other cards, and each card is shared with individual people rather than through workspace permissions. For anyone whose Evernote is ten thousand short entries — a reading note, a phone number, a thought about a client — that is a better fit than a wiki, because the unit of work matches the unit of thought and sharing does not mean granting access to a folder.
The operator is Supernotes Education Ltd, registered in England and Wales under company number 11376395 at 86-90 Paul Street, London EC2A 4NE, with the law of England and Wales governing.
The Starter plan is free forever with 100 kept cards, all apps on Mac, Windows, Linux, Android and iOS, offline access, sync and collaboration. Unlimited is £6 a month, £72 a year, or £54 a year with the 25% discount, with a four-year plan at £144 and a 50% student discount on .edu and .ac.uk addresses.
On data, the privacy policy states that the websites are hosted in the UK and acknowledges that outsourced services outside the European Union are used from time to time, without naming a provider or a sub-processor. Post-Brexit that puts the notes under UK GDPR rather than EU GDPR, which is a real distinction for an EU buyer even though the UK currently holds an adequacy decision.
What Supernotes does well
- Cards rather than pages, which matches how short notes actually accumulate
- Per-card sharing instead of workspace-level permissions
- 100 cards free with no time limit and every platform included
- Websites stated to be hosted in the UK
- Steep student discount and a long-term plan at about £3 a month
Where Supernotes falls short
- UK jurisdiction rather than EU, which some EU procurement rules treat differently
- No hosting provider or sub-processor named, and outsourcing outside the EU is acknowledged
- 100 cards is a low free ceiling for a note-taker who writes daily
- Poor fit for long documents — the card format fights you
- No end-to-end encryption, no self-hosting, not open source
Standout feature. Sharing a single card with a single person, without giving them a workspace, is something no other tool in this category does natively.
Dublin, Ireland
Free / Bear Pro $2.99 per month or $29.99 per year through the App Store
7-day free trial of Bear Pro
Best for: Apple users who want a beautiful Markdown notebook with no vendor server in the middle
Bear is the best-made note app in this category and the narrowest. Markdown with tags instead of notebooks, a genuinely considered typographic interface, over two dozen themes, encryption of individual notes, and OCR search inside PDFs and images. Shiny Frog has been iterating on it for years and it shows in the details rather than in the feature count.
The unusual part is the architecture. Bear runs no notes server of its own: synchronisation goes through Apple CloudKit using the iCloud credentials already on your devices, which means Shiny Frog never holds your notes and there is no Bear account to breach.
Bear Sync takes advantage of Apple's Advanced Data Protection where it is enabled, with the documented exception that note titles and tag names stay unencrypted so Bear Pro features keep working. Shiny Frog Ltd gives 60-63 Dawson St, Dublin as its address in its privacy policy, while the terms of service specify Italian law.
The limits are hard ones. Bear is macOS, iOS, iPadOS, Apple Watch and Bear Web — there is no Windows, Linux or Android app, so a mixed-device team cannot use it. Bear Pro is $2.99 a month or $29.99 a year through the App Store with a 7-day trial, and the free version does not include sync at all, which makes the subscription the price of using Bear on more than one device.
What Bear does well
- The most carefully designed writing interface in this category
- No vendor notes server: sync runs through your own iCloud via CloudKit
- Supports Apple Advanced Data Protection where the user has enabled it
- Tags rather than notebooks, plus OCR search inside PDFs and images
- Cheap for what it is — $29.99 a year across all your devices
Where Bear falls short
- Apple platforms only — no Windows, Linux or Android
- The storage is Apple's, a US company, even though the vendor is European
- iCloud sync requires Bear Pro; the free version is single-device
- Note titles and tag names remain unencrypted even under Advanced Data Protection
- No team features, no collaborative editing, no self-hosting
Standout feature. It is the only tool here that solved the hosting question by not hosting anything: your notes never touch a server belonging to the company that makes the app.
Leipzig, Germany
$39.99 per year or $5.99 per month, US pricing; reduced for students
Free trial through the App Store
Best for: Writers whose notes are drafts, and who want one library instead of a folder of files
Ulysses is in this category because a great many people's note app is really a writing app they never finish anything in.
It inverts the usual arrangement: one library holds every sheet you have ever written, you file with keywords and groups rather than with a filesystem, and the editor gets out of the way with plain Markdown-style markup. For long-form work — a thesis, a book, a running set of research notes — that is a materially different experience from a wiki.
The publisher is Ulysses GmbH & Co. KG at Peterssteinweg 10, 04107 Leipzig, registered at Amtsgericht Leipzig under HRA 17795, represented by Ulysses Vermögens- und Verwaltungs-GmbH (HRB 33182) with Max Seelemann and Marcus Fehn as managing directors.
Pricing is a single subscription covering all your Macs, iPads and iPhones at $39.99 a year or $5.99 a month at US rates, with reduced student pricing, Apple Family Sharing for up to five other people included, and volume licensing available outside the App Store for organisations.
Two honest constraints. Synchronisation is iCloud, so the vendor is a Leipzig company and the storage is Apple's — the same trade as Bear. And Ulysses is Apple-only, so it is not a candidate for a team on mixed hardware. What it does better than anything else here is leave: export runs to DOCX, ePub, PDF, HTML and Markdown, which means the writing is portable even though the library is not.
What Ulysses does well
- One library and sheets rather than files, which suits long-form work
- Export to DOCX, ePub, PDF, HTML and Markdown — a genuinely open exit
- German GmbH & Co. KG with a full imprint and named managing directors
- One subscription covers all your Apple devices, with Family Sharing included
- Volume licensing outside the App Store for organisations
Where Ulysses falls short
- Apple platforms only — no Windows, Linux, Android or web version
- Syncs through Apple iCloud, so the storage is a US company's
- A writing app, not a knowledge base: no links, graph, database or tasks
- No collaboration or sharing beyond export
- Prices are quoted in US dollars and vary by App Store region
Standout feature. Its export list — DOCX, ePub, PDF, HTML and Markdown — is the broadest in this category, which makes it the easiest tool here to stop using.
Nantes, France
Limited free version with a 7-day trial of the full app; the paid upgrade is sold through the app stores and the price varies by region
7-day free trial, then a limited free version
Best for: Anyone whose notes are handwritten and who wants them converted on the device
MyScript Notes, sold as Nebo until recently and still called that on Windows, does one thing nobody else in this category does: it reads handwriting. You write with a stylus, and the app converts the page to typed text, recognises diagrams and shapes, handles equations, and lets you annotate imported PDFs. The recognition runs on the device rather than round-tripping through somebody's cloud, which is the reason it belongs on a page about where your notes go.
MyScript SAS is at 3 rue de la Rainière, 44339 Nantes Cedex 3, registered in Nantes under RCS 419 963 806 with VAT number FR43419963806 and share capital of €1,461,768 — a long-established French engineering company rather than a recent app studio.
Its legal notice names Amazon Web Services EMEA SARL in Luxembourg as the host of its website. Notes themselves synchronise through storage you already have: iCloud on iOS, Google Drive or Dropbox elsewhere, with a free MyScript account needed only for cloud sync and web-link sharing.
The commercial side is the weak part for a buyer comparing prices. The full app comes with a 7-day trial after which there is a limited free version and a paid upgrade, but the amount is set through the app stores and varies by region and promotion, so the vendor publishes no price you can quote in a budget. It is also not a general note system: there is no wiki, no database, no team workspace, and no collaborative editing.
What MyScript Notes does well
- Handwriting recognition that runs on the device, not in a vendor cloud
- Diagrams, shapes and equations recognised, plus annotation of imported PDFs
- Long-established French SAS with a complete legal notice and RCS number
- Syncs through storage you already control — iCloud, Google Drive or Dropbox
- Limited free version after the trial rather than a hard paywall
Where MyScript Notes falls short
- No published price: the upgrade is sold through the app stores and varies by region
- The sync options are all US-owned services, chosen by you rather than by the vendor
- The website is hosted by Amazon Web Services EMEA SARL in Luxembourg
- Not a knowledge base: no links, graph, database or team workspace
- Needs a stylus and a capable tablet to be worth having at all
Standout feature. It is the only tool in this category that turns handwriting into text without sending the page to a server to do it.
